‘And in the afternoon there’s a whist drive at the Institute,’ said Diva. ‘I’m letting both my servants go, and Lucia’s sending all hers too. I’m not sure I should like to be quite alone in a house along that lonely road. We in the town could scream from a top window if burglars got into our houses and raise the alarm.’

‘It would be a very horrid burglar who was so wicked on Boxing Day,’ observed Elizabeth sententiously. ‘Ah, here’s the plum pudding! Blazing beautifully, Withers! So pretty!’

Diva became justifiably somnolent when lunch was over, and after half an hour’s careful conversation she went off home to have a nice long nap, which she expressed by the word exercises. Elizabeth wrote two notes of gratitude to the donors of the pâté and sat herself down to think seriously of what she could do. She had refused Lucia’s invitation to tea a few days before, thus declaring her attitude, and now it seemed to her that that was a mistake, for she had cut herself off from the opportunities of reprisals which intercourse with her might have provided. She had been unable, severed like this, to devise anything at all effective; all she could do was to lie awake at night hating Lucia, and this seemed to be quite barren of results. It might be better (though bitter) to join that callisthenic class in order to get a foot in the enemy’s territory. Her note of thanks for the pâté would have paved the way towards such a step, and though it would certainly be eating humble pie to ask to join an affair that she had openly derided, it would be pie with a purpose. As it was, for a whole week she had had no opportunities, she had surrounded herself with a smoke-cloud, she heard nothing about Lucia any more, except when clumsy Diva let out things by accident. All she knew was that Lucia, busier than any bee known to science, was undoubtedly supreme in all the social activities which she herself had been accustomed to direct, and to remain, like Achilles in his tent, did not lead to anything. Also she had an idea that Tilling expected of her some exhibition of spirit and defiance, and no one was more anxious than she to fulfil those expectations to the utmost. So she settled she would go to Grebe tomorrow, and, after thanking her in person for the pâté, ask to join the callisthenic class. Tilling, and Lucia too, no doubt would take that as a sign of surrender, but let them wait a while, and they should see.

‘I can’t fight her unless I get in touch with her,’ reflected Elizabeth; ‘at least I don’t see how, and I’m sure I’ve thought enough.’

Chapter 10